When we first purchased our Disney Vacation Rental Home we planned to go for Spring Break. I mean it just makes sense! Why not use the house for the week and have a chill family time, right? Our property manager contacted us and let us know he had someone interested in renting it for that week for a LARGE sum of money. We said “BOOK IT!” and instead made a short visit down and just got a cheap condo for our few nights.
The downside of renting a condo was that we couldn’t just show up. We had to check-in past 4:00. We decided to just head down and go straight to the store. I fed Spear his 3:00 bottle and Zach and the kids knocked out our grocery list for the trip!
First time a random stranger pinched his cheeks haha! He did GREAT in the car for the ride down. I was nervous b/c he gets fussy when we go pick up Tess from school but he was AWESOME!
It was so funny when I was feeding him b/c the cheek-pinching lady was talking to me like I was a first timer so I let her know I had three others haha! Love being a mom of 4!
Our condo was at Reunion resort! It was small but we made it work and it was just fine for our needs for our short visit!
We thought we’d be smart and pick up chicken fingers while at Publix. Yall we paid $12 for some dang chicken fingers! Next time it’ll be McD!!!
The kids all took a dip in the pool and Kye jumped in with his watch on. Zach was super sweet and ran back to the store and bought rice but it didn’t work. It’s a tough parenting moment b/c it’s so tempting to buy him another one, but we told him he can either buy another one himself or ask for it for Christmas or his birthday!
When we bought our annual passes we knew we’d have to do small, short trips to the parks due to Spear being so young. It works out GREAT though b/c I LOVE doing the parks and Zach LOVES chill time. He works SO HARD so just getting to hang out at the condo and watch golf all day while Spear naps? He’s golden.
He even took Spear for a walk that morning around the resort 🙂
I’d already tackled a morning at Epcot solo with the big 3 back in February but this trip we took on Magic Kingdom…on Spring Break of all times (one of the most crowded times to visit!).
Monoral Smiles!
Happiest place with most of my crew!!!
Kye’s shirt is from Target and I feel like it’s THE shirt right now. I’ve seen like a ba-zillion boys wearing it ha!
The girls dresses are from Ali Express. They were under $8 each!
Fav pic of the day!
Joining the thousands of people at park opening 😉
Watching the opening show. I love seeing their JOY!
And then there is the 9 year old boy haha he wanted us to be waiting for Tomorrowland to open haha
Can’t help but get into it a little bit.
Before I get into our morning details I want to emphasis. This was SPRING BREAK. I also had NO FASTPASSES. We got to the park about 30 min before opening. It was an 8 am opening day (my fav!). And we didn’t have a set plan or agenda. We literally went with the flow!
I also want to say that visiting the parks as a solo parent is VERY doable. Most rides can be ridden by everyone sitting together. The ones that are separate require kids to be ages 7 or older to sit without an adult. Right now that means that Kye rides solo but here soon Britt will be able to ride with Kye and I’ll be freed up a bit!
We hit up Buzz first thing and walked right on!
His concentration face it THE BEST
Per usual, we defeated Zurg!
Something I LOVE about going solo to the parks is stopping at photo pass people. Zach is extremely goal focused. If we’re going from one experience to the next then he’s focused on that task and does NOT like random stops along the way. The kids and I are all about it! I love just being relaxed and going where the day takes me.
And yes, this is coming from me. Miss Hardcore Planner. I’m not advising ANYONE to go with the flow at the parks but the advantage of being a pass holder is that we can be so casual about it!
Solo Mommy and Kid castle pics!
Had to see the red head auction one last time!
Tess’s pirate face!
On our way out a pirate stopped us to give us some eye patches 🙂
It’s great letting the kids get to dictate so many things that we do. I truly just LOVE being at Disney. I don’t care WHAT I’m doing while I’m there. I’m totally and completely content to do whatever they want to do and just be along for the ride. They opted for Haunted Mansion and it said 20 min wait but it was only about 10!
Tess LOVES the SPOOKY!
Snack time is always a good time!!! She loves her “sticky foot”
I have an iPhone 7 Plus. I’m debating going ahead and upgrading. Does anyone with the 8 plus or X have this issue in portrait mode? SEVERAL of my pics look like this. And there is another later on from that morning that also has some weird haze around the kids heads. It BUGS me. It’ll def give me the push to upgrade if I hear from those who own either that this issue is resolved! Now that we do go more often I don’t want to lug around my Nikon!
My handsome boy!
And yes, flannel jacket AT SPRING BREAK. It was CHILLY.
It’s a Small World!
I always let the kids bring 1 friend to the parks with them. I just think it’s cute honestly. It’s sweet to have them carry them around and it just reminds me of childhood. Tess chose to bring Tramp with her that day and he’s actually mine from when I was a little girl! How adorable is that?
Britt brought Jasmine!
Philarmagic! Always a must!
There is a new Muppets show in front of The Hall of Presidents we stopped to watch for a few minutes! It was cute but the kids were on a mission 😉
Whoop whoop! I ADORE random character meetings!!!
“High Five!”
Ok I know I just said I LOVE Disney and am JUST happy to BE there. And that’s true. BUT I did do a pretty big eyeroll when the kids said they just really, really wanted to skip riding anything else and instead go to Tom Sawyer Island. Really yall? Really?
We headed over there and it didn’t open until 11. Which is random too? And there was a LONG LINE waiting for it to open. Who the heck waits in line for Tom Sawyer Island?!?! I guess we do haha!
If you’re planning a trip to Disney, I wouldn’t recommend Tom Sawyer Island as a “must do” or even a “if you have time” item to do. It’s literally a little raft ride over to an island that is a walking area with caves and such and a playground. It’s neat. It’s well done. But it’s also just not that incredible or anything. The kids really enjoy it though and I had said the day was theirs so I rolled with it! And it was neat being some of the only people there!!!
We explored the caves and headed straight to the gun shooting area (which truly I’m pretty shocked is still there with all the political changes Disney has been making lately…). I will say Tom Sawyer Island is a good place to go if you have little ones who can’t ride a lot of the big rides or you have someone sitting to hold a spot for a parade and need a place to let the kids run around (that’s what we did last year).
The caves had us a bit spooked! If you do the caves STAY TOGETHER. The exits are not the same as the entrance area so it’d be easy to lose a kid and the spaces are very tight so if you’re “pooh sized” be warned! I was doing a lot of sucking in haha!
We were among a decent crowd going to the island but were the first ones to actually leave which was super cool because we had the entire raft to ourselves!
We planned to head out at lunch time so we took our time leaving and stopped to watch a show at the castle!
I love little dresses that let them TWIRL and SPIN!
I also love when random strangers offer to take my pics! I always offer for others and it’s SO NICE when they return the favor!
And yes…Tess opted not to be in the photo…I’m glad the random guy got shots with her in them so I can use them later in life to prove that SHE chose this!!!
Bless him he was so sweet trying to get her in the pic ha!
Best. View.
I kept this one to show the weird issue with the portrait mode…look around Kye’s ears!
My big babies! We had SUCH A FUN MORNING!!!
Britt has a slight obsession with Magic Photos!
As we were leaving…THIS was the line to ENTER.
I love how chill she is 😉
Kye and I have become pretty obsessed with checking wait times. It’s really fun to see how long waits are for things that we literally WALKED ON. We were only in the park for 3 hours total and only were actively riding things for 2 ½ of those (b/c then we got in line for Tom Sawyer). And in that 2 ½ hour time period we rode: Buzz, Pirates, Haunted Mansion, It’s A Small World, and Philarmagic and literally took our TIME walking to each one. And it was SPRING BREAK!
GET TO THE PARKS EARLY!
Back at the room Tessie went down for a nap and the big two went with Zach to Animal Kingdom. I booked them fast passes for the afternoon so they could ride three thrill rides during nap time. Which worked out AWESOME!
I had grand plans of laying out at the pool. It was SO CLOSE to our condo but the dang monitor couldn’t reach (see those doors? That’s the condo!).
So I cuddled up in bed and read a bit of our Book Club Book (The Last Mrs Parrish) and then took a nap!
The fastpass plan worked out SO WELL. Zach said it was AWESOME. By afternoon time the Spring Break crowd REALLY sets in yet they were easily able to walk in, hop on their fastpass rides and didn’t have to deal with any of the crowd issues at all or any lines or anything!
And he even took some pics 😉 So proud!
This pic also shows that he’s turning into his father…pretty sure he’s listening to golf while at Disney…
They rode Dinosaur, Everest, and a new-to-us ride called Primevil Whirl. I’m a wuss and have no clue what any of these rides even look like so I can’t specify which ride is which photo ha!
Britt claims that Everest is her FAVORITE ride. Can’t you tell? Doesn’t she look like she’s LOVING IT? haha
Back at the room Tess slept HARD so I got to enjoy this cutie!
Our main goal for the trip was to take a day and go to Cocoa Beach. I’m from Satellite Beach, Florida originally and it’s important to me that each of my babies experience their first time at the beach at my childhood beach! We brought ALL our beach gear and planned to take them all on the second day of our trip (Friday) but it had been SO CHILLY at Magic Kingdom that morning that we KNEW the beach would NOT be a good idea. Once we started thinking through it more we remembered that Britt’s first beach visit was also over Spring Break and it was SO windy and chilly and we only stayed like 30 min! For her first beach visit we stayed in the Cocoa Beach area so only spending a short time at the beach wasn’t a big deal but this trip we were staying in Orlando which is about a 45 min drive. We didn’t want to drive all that way and then the kids be miserable and want to turn around and leave!
We looked at our calendar and decided a date in May to come back and try again for the beach and opted to have a chill night/movie evening that night so we could make last minute plans for what to do the next day!
Even though it was a BEAUTIFUL forecast…weather in the 70s probably didn’t mean the ocean would be very warm!
Chill time!
We had a great first day of our mini-vacation and just love all being together as a family making memories! While I want to soak up Spear’s sweet baby stage it will be so fun when he’s old enough to just go to the parks like we’ve been doing and have so much more park time together!
If you’re looking to visit Disney and need a very affordable, very close to the parks place to stay then be sure to check out our rental home AND the great discount we offer to blog friends and family!
Also be sure to follow me on Instagram! I’m addicted to Stories and post constant updates during our days at the parks!!!
